Left, from top to bottom: Alexander, Tanner, and Andrew Skelton (WDIV). Right: John Skelton (Michigan Department of Corrections).
A Michigan man convicted of wrongfully imprisoning his three young sons who have not been seen since 2010 has been set for release from prison.
John Skelton, 53, was found guilty of wrongful imprisonment in 2011 after he failed to return his three sons — Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner, 5 — to his ex-wife after the Thanksgiving holiday in 2010. During a 2018 interview with local NBC affiliate WDIV from prison, he said he told police that he turned all three of them over to an "underground sanctuary" in Ohio because he felt that his ex-wife was a "danger" to them.
The boys were never seen again, and their mother had them legally declared dead in March.
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The boys' mother, Tanya Zuvers, had attempted to get a judge to declare that Skelton was responsible for killing them, but she was denied. Skelton has not been charged in connection with the boys' deaths.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Skelton spent Thanksgiving in 2010 with the three sons he shared with Zuvers, assuring her that he would bring them back to her the following morning. Skelton never brought the boys back. Investigators later tracked his cellphone to Ohio on the day after Thanksgiving. In 2018, Skelton told WDIV that on Thanksgiving night, a van arrived at his home and took the three boys away to bring them to an "underground sanctuary" run by two women and a man in his 60s.
Authorities never found evidence to support this claim.
Hours after Skelton's cellphone was tracked to a location 30 miles into Ohio from the Michigan border, the phone was tracked again to his home in Morenci, Michigan. That Friday after Thanksgiving, Skelton called a friend to bring him to the hospital after he injured himself during a failed suicide attempt.
When Zuvers found out Skelton was in the hospital on the day he promised to return the boys to her, he told her several different stories about what happened. Their conversation prompted Zuvers to call the police and report the boys missing.
Skelton's stories evolved from the boys being with a "friend" to him having "a vision" that the boys were "put in a dumpster" in Ohio. While he was in prison, he sent police on a wild goose chase into the local Amish community, telling them to look into a former reality TV personality and mystery writer who had been excommunicated from the religious sect. Skelton indicated to police that he made that story up.
Skelton was sentenced to 10 to 15 years after being found guilty on three counts of wrongful imprisonment. After being denied parole in 2023, he is now set to be released from prison on Nov. 29.
Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.
